Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo became the country’s best sporting heroine after her golden performance in Tokyo. —FILE PHOTO
In three weeks time, weightlifting could achieve something for Team Philippines that no other sport has done to date: Book 4 tickets to the Paris Olympics.
Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo leads the list of contenders for qualification and is on course for a record fifth straight appearance within the Summer Games.
And this time she won’t be alone.
Asian youth and junior standout Rosegie Ramos, who has been training with the Tokyo gold medalist, needs to complete contained in the top ten in a qualifying tournament on April 2 to 11 in Phuket, Thailand, to affix Diaz-Naranjo.
“I even have to be patient and be sure to point out up in prime condition through the (last) qualification tournament,” said the 20-year-old Ramos in Filipino.
The lifter from Zamboanga is currently tied for eighth and ninth spots with Dominican Republic’s Beatriz Piron and desires to remain where she is or rank higher to earn an Olympic appearance.
Bohol’s Vanessa Sarno and Cebu’s John Fabuar Ceniza are in even higher positions going into the qualifying tournament.
Sarno, the gold medalist within the 2022 Asian championships in the ladies’s 71kg, is safely tucked at fifth and only a disastrous lead to Phuket could deny her of an Olympic stint.
“I’m repeatedly increase my strength by training hard every single day,” said Sarno, whose profession best in the whole is 249kgs.
Ceniza has been consistent within the last 4 of 5 qualification tournaments they’ve undergone, sharing the fifth and sixth slots in the boys’s 61kg with Georgia’s Shota Mishevelidze.
“We have now been praying for this. God has been good to us on this sport,” said Samahang Weightlifting ng Pilipinas president Monico Puentevella, who’s dedicating PH weightlifting’s rush of Olympic slots to his late wife.
Diaz-Naranjo stands at eighth overall in the ladies’s 59kg after 4 qualifying meets.
The weightlifting heroine moved up in weight after the 55kg class where she won the nation’s first Olympic gold medal in Tokyo got scrubbed from the Paris calendar. INQ
